One of the nation’s foremost computer scientists, exasperated by the unfriendliness of today’s computer systems, suggests what designers can do to make machines serve human needs–rather than the other way around.

150 years after Thomas Edison’s birth, his record of 1,093 diverse patents is still unrivaled. A massive effort to catalogue his voluminous collection of papers and artifacts is yielding clues to account for his phenomenal success.

Dental researchers are making significant strides in identifying the microorganisms that colonize the mouth. To head off serious decay and disease, scientists are developing tools that prevent these microbes from gaining a foothold.